Saturday, December 30, 2006

White (sand) Christmas

Geographically-minded as our friends and family are, we've gotten quite a few "where exactly are you?" questions since arriving on Mauritius. The answer is that we're on a teeny tiny island in the Indian Ocean, a bit east of Madagascar, a while still west of Australia. (It was a 4 hour flight from Jo'burg to here; it will be a 12 hour flight from here to Sydney.) Officially part of Africa, the population of Mauritius is majority of Indian descent, followed by Creoles (the descendents of Africans originally brought here as slaves), Chinese, and a small number of Europeans, mainly French. There are no indigenous people here-- I think the first place we've ever been where that's the case-- and there seems to have been something very evening about the fact of everyone being an immigrant, as the culture is syncretic in every realm, and the Mauritian identity seems to be stronger than any separate ethnic one. Which is not to say that the island's history isn't full of the same bad stuff as so many other places: it was the subject of battles between colonial powers, going from Dutch to British to French; it was built on the labor first of African slaves and then of Indian indentured servants; and it was long taken advantage of in the colonial model as a producer of sugar cane for its European rulers. But since independence in 1968, Mauritius has had free, multi-party elections every five years, educated a highly literate and largely bilingual population, and developed its economy in a diverse manner.

Our first several days were spent in Mahebourg, in the island's southeast, which is relatively undeveloped for tourism. The town itself was sleepy and relaxed, although the streets were packed with holiday bustle on Christmas Eve. One of the highlights of such a mixed population is, for us, the food: many restaurants serve Indian, Creole, Chinese, and French dishes, or a mixture thereof, in addition to others that specialize in one of the same. We rented bikes for easy rides to the beach, tried to visit a long-running cookie factory (they were closed, so we just had to buy the cookies in a supermarket), and visited a nature reserve called Ile aux Aigrettes. The latter is a small island just off the Mahebourg coast, where the Mauritian Nature Conservancy has gotten rid of all exotic species and replaced them with native species, including ebony, palms in different shapes, the large Aldabra tortoise, and the very rare pink pigeon. We got a glimpse of the pigeon, which was not as excitingly bright as we had hoped, but did have a definite pinkish hue. We also went for a hike up Lion Mountain, the most prominent natural landmark in the area-- or I should say I tried to go for a hike, and Erik actually did. Not far into it, we encountered a stretch of vertical rock that required climbing, not hiking; I made it up that one, but when we immediately ran into another, I gave up, dizzy already. Erik kept going, climbing more than hiking for much of the way, and was rewarded with gorgeous views. I sat looking at the ocean and sang myself Christmas carols (a little sadly, I'll admit).

On Christmas Eve we joined our hotel owner at a Catholic service, all in French, which may have served to make us more homesick rather than less. We went for Chinese food that night, which made me feel a bit more at home in the spirit of a wonderful New York Times piece I remember from 15 years ago, "Erev Christmas"-- about all the Jews in New York gathering at Chinese restaurants (the only thing open) on Christmas Eve. Our hotel had placed a little Christmas tree in our room, which we decorated with flowers that had fallen off a tree, and Santa did manage to find it, even putting an orange in Erik's dirty sock. We spent Christmas on the beach, which we certainly can't complain about, but it sure didn't feel right. It helped, though, that the beach was packed with Mauritian families, for whom a sandy Christmas picnic WAS the tradition. So for a day, we tried to pretend it was ours too-- and also talked a lot about past and future years, at home.

Friday, December 22, 2006

Homelands and Hartford: Experiences of Race in Post-Apartheid South Africa and the U.S.

Throughout our travels we've been forced to rethink many of our conceptions of our native land, the good ol' U.S. of A. In many instances, despite their articulating severe criticisms of the American government/foreign policy, we've been surprised to find that so many people across the world have such a positive view of what the U.S. represents, and less surprised but still overwhelmed about how many people we meet ask us how they can move to the U.S.

South Africa felt different from any other country that we have visited on this trip, and also the most similar to the U.S. (and especially Hartford). Despite having our camera stolen in Mexico, and despite having been hassled and verbally harassed to some degree in nearly every place we've visited, before South Africa we haven't felt afraid or endangered. By contrast, in South Africa everyone we talked to tried to make us afraid, and we also felt some of that fear ourselves. In thinking about this feeling and South Africa's history of Apartheid (and the "Homelands," politically semi-autonomous Black areas that were supposed to demonstrate to the outside world that South Africa's racial separation worked for all) , we wanted to write more retelling and reflecting on our experiences of race there compared to our experiences of race in Hartford. We'll focus first on South African perceptions/stories of race, next on some of our own experiences/conversations there, and finally our reflections/comparisons to the U.S.

[Since our relatives are the primary readership of this blog, we want to first make clear that we were (and continue to be) very cautious and careful not to put ourselves in dangerous situations. Our only personal experience with crime in South Africa happened the day we arrived in Cape Town, a half-joking attempt at intimidation by 2 young men]

In our experience, an overwhelming aspect of race today in South Africa is all about crime and fear. Fear there is of an entirely different degree from the racial fear in the U.S. At least a part of this fear is justified by reality, by the statistics. South Africa has an incredible amount of violent crime: 52,000 murders per year in a country of 4 million whites and 40 million blacks (along with millions of people classified as coloured or Indian), and the highest (rate/number?) of rapes of any country in the world.

Again and again, we heard from people stories and personal experiences about crime. Our friends in the Peace Corps told us that P.C. volunteers are not allowed to visit Johannesburg. Several volunteers they know have been mugged. One had been "barred" (choked from behind with a steel bar) and bitten in Pretoria; he had to undergo the incredibly toxic and painful HIV-preventive vaccination. Bitten--like the stereotype of savagery, the humanity of the attacker being transformed into animal fury.

Johannesburg is portrayed as the center of all evil. Marcus, the English journalist that we traveled with in Ghana, had been working on a free lance piece in Nigeria before we met him. He was mugged his first day in Lagos. Marcus had worked previously for three years in Mexico; he said that Mexico City was like Disneyland compared to Lagos, and then later told us in an email that people in Nigeria said that Johannesburg is more dangerous than Lagos. Driving at night in Joburg, people don't stop at red lights, for fear of being highjacked.

The occupation with the highest death rate in South Africa is police officer: police are targeted and assassinated by criminals, and some police stations have hired private security firms to protect their police stations. The second most deadly occupation is a farmer, since farms are often isolated and therefore more vulnerable to attack.

While we were in Cape Town, 2 township tours were mugged. A year before, a bus full of German travel agents who were visiting was mugged on a township tour, and they caught the next flight back to Germany. Like the biting aspect of the P.C. volunteer's attack, here is another example of the outburst of anger: targeting those (whites on a township tour) who are actually trying to bring in money, tourism, etc. to impoverished areas.

It wasn't just whites who were afraid of crime: driving from Manyeding with the bride and groom, the bride told us to be careful walking around, and that she had recently been "barred" for her cell phone. Like in the U.S., many of the victims of crime are nonwhite: our Cape Town host's cleaning woman, who lives in a township, has her house robbed every few months. Our host told us she pretends to be asleep when the robbers enter so that she isn't harmed, knowing that the robbers will be back as soon as they've given people time to acquire new goods.

Like Rachel mentioned in her Urban Experiences blog, everything in South Africa has at least a fence around it, and probably more. (One of the more lighthearted examples of security was a few blocks from our host's house in Cape Town, the entrance to the hiking paths is padlocked (neighborhood residents are given a key) to keep out "sangomas:" traditional healers who were stripping the bark from some of the trees near the entrance to use in their medicines.) If plastic bags used be referred to as the "national flower" of South Africa (a problem which has since been solved by charging a minimal amount for plastic bags in stores), then razor wire is the "national plant." Never have we seen so much anywhere: at a gas station, the sidewalk fence between the pumps and the store entrance was looped with razor wire, presumably to deter would be robbers looking to make a quick getaway. The schools around Manyeding village were fenced with razor wire; they, like many of the houses with razor or electric wire fences and bars on the windows, looked more like prisons. One German told us about his friend who lived in a gated community outside of Pretoria. I almost had to laugh when he said that she's been robbed there several times, wondering if _anyone_ in the U.S. would live in a "gated community" that despite that status still has regular robberies.

Although we had many interactions with people around the issue of race, two of them stand out. The first was in Nature's Valley, talking at the pub with a white couple (an Afrikaaner man and an American woman) who owned a contracting business that employed about 40 workers. They spoke about the problems they have with all (whites included) workers, and their disagreements with Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), the South African version of affirmative action. While genuinely reflecting the realities of their situation, they also used the phrase "I'm not a racist but..." several times, as well as the half-joke, "What's the difference between a tourist and a racist? Two weeks." While we certainly disagreed with some of what they said, it was an interesting conversation in terms of giving us a glimpse of some of the issues from a very different perspective than our own: that of small business owners trying to make their company work in a new political and economic climate. Their attitudes were not just a simple as "black and white."

The second interaction occurred poolside in the Drakensberg mountains. A group of Colored (again, the South African term for people of mixed race: not as far as we can tell considered inappropriate by anyone but still difficult for us to write/say because of its history as a derogatory term in the U.S.) people about our age were starting their weekend, drinking and talking loudly. A white man who was sitting nearby came and condescendingly yelled at them, playing the race card from the start by first of all saying "I don't know whether you're staying here," and then justifying his own rights there by saying that although he lived in England now, he was born in South Africa. When he returned to his seat, the Colored people grumbled loudly "Go back to England" before eventually one of them offered him a glass of wine and some kind of reconciliation took place. This interaction was notable for its boring predictability, and the fact that while race wasn't really at issue (people being loud), that's what came to the forefront. In some small way maybe it represents the difficulty, the understandable wariness that all racial categories of people have in trying to live together in the "new" South Africa, which despite massive amounts of crime and violence has also experienced incredible change (our Servas hosts in Durban telling us that the downtown has basically gone from being 95% white to 95% black since Apartheid, and that this has happened peacefully).

In closing with a few thoughs on similarities to race in the U.S., one large factor in the perception of both is the media. In South Africa, the media seemed to relish the bloody headlines in a sensational, tabloid way. While it's clear that there is a reality to the crime and problems around race, it's also clear to us that, like our walking tour of Soweto demonstrated, crime and the perception of race as a type of fear is far from the only reality.

But crime does exist in South Africa, and because it's a part of daily life, it's how most whites experience the category of race and Apartheid inequalities directly. Living in a poor area of Hartford, we were also victims of crime: in some way, the statistics say it's almost bound to happen, if not to you directly than at least to someone you know closely. Fear and crime are the individual experiences, which understandably obscure the structural, the historical inequalities. Like in the U.S., those who are able flee these areas in their self-interest of avoiding crime--we heard time and time again about white relatives who were urging family still in South Africa to leave the country.

We felt that while talking with the white business owners in Nature's Valley gave us valid angles on social and economic questions of the present, it did not give possible answers to the sometimes insurmountable-seeming question of how to work to redress past wrongs. Some of the more extreme attempts at doing this (at least in Africa) seem like complete failures, for example president/dictator Mugabe's seizure of white farms in Zimbabwe (although these have the additonal problem in our view of not being done with sincere intentions but rather for Mugabe's own political preservation).

One white resident who, coming back from a hike, gave us a lift back to our lodge in the Drakensberg expressed surprise that the U.S hasn't been able to solve our race "problem," given that the demographic numbers are reversed (with blacks being 12% and whites over half of the U.S. population; and a much higher ratio of blacks to the white minority in South Africa). Maybe these numbers are part of the reason that the U.S. doesn't have quite the same fear--whites are more able to exist in the suburbs, away from inner cities and nonwhite populations, whereas, even with the hyper-segregation of Apartheid, it seems much more difficult for whites to live apart in South Africa. The numbers are not in their favor.

Despite this difference in numbers, what does feel very similar to the U.S. is the vast inequality between people, with much of this based in racial categories. While we don't believe that inequality is the only cause of crime, it certainly seems to be one of the main factors. In South Africa, people committing crimes don't just target whites, they target people who have something attractive to steal, and the majority of these are still white. Although the U.S. has the history of slavery to overcome, even its evils seem less in comparison to the acts of Apartheid. One example of this difference of degree, and still the strongest visual example of inequality in South Africa, is the housing. Blacks and other nonwhites were housed in "townships" under Apartheid, and today structures ranging from flimsy shacks to more solid small houses still stand, usually still completely separated from a nearby town or white residential area. Taking Hartford as an example, the housing of the poorest (and nonwhite) residents is certainly unequal, but even the worst public housing project does not resemble the total segregation of Apartheid townships. Most of the U.S. non-project housing differs from wealthier housing not necessarily in terms of the type of structure, but in terms of upkeep. Again despite its inequality and inadequacy, in comparison the housing for the nonwhite poor in U.S. cities seems like something which developed because of neglect mixed with racism but still in a slightly more organic process, compared to the stark, completely unnatural, hyper-racialized construction of the Apartheid townships. We write this not to excoriate the conditions of race in the U.S., but in attempt to demonstrate the degree of difference in South Africa.

One positive way in which South Africa differs from the U.S. on race is the willingness to confront some of these issues, and the belief that a way can be found to live together peacefully. These beliefs have a long history: in the African National Congress's 1955 Freedom Charter, it rejects the contemporary Pan-African Congress claim of Africa for the Africans and instead resolves that all residents of South Africa can live together. In comparison to leaders like Mugabe, whose attempts to overcome racial wrongs of the past seem to lead only to more problems, leaders like Mandela and now Mbeki have not blamed all the problems of the nation on its history or its white residents. On the Soweto tour, the Colored brother (who also told us that he didn't think blacks should be leaders of a nation!) of an ANC member who hosted secret meetings with Mandela remarked that he was very impressed by a speech Mandela made recently saying that blacks have a lot to learn from the successes of whites. The ANC goes to seemingly great distances to support its rhetoric of forgiveness, to build on some of the successes of the post-Apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Committee: it even offered a state funeral to P.W. Botha, the last hardline Apartheid leader in the 1980s, when he recently died.

South Africa is a place of extremes, simultaneously extreme hope and extreme despair. It has experienced some successes in overcoming Apartheid, and in these we think may provide a model for working to achieve harmony among different peoples and overcome the categories of race by working towards greater economic and social equality.

Urban Experiences: Durban, Johannesberg, and Soweto

Our stint in backpackerland took a welcome break when we arrived in Durban, South Africa's third-largest city and the southern hemisphere's busiest port. Although the Baz Bus didn't drop us off there until close to midnight, our SERVAS hosts, Alex and Tracey, picked us up and brought us home for a curry dinner with their two cats, Candy and Gidgy. Alec is a lifelong Durban resident; Tracey grew up in rural KwaZulu-Natal (Zululand), and has lived in Durban for many years. (Tracey now runs a Zulu crafts cooperative, working closely with local women and taking regular trips to various parts of the world to sell the goods.) They are enthusiasts of both their city and their region, and provided us with a wonderful introduction to the area. This included sampling Durban's iconic food, bunny chow-- an Indian curry served inside a hollowed-out quarter loaf of bread. Durban has the world's largest Indian population outside of India, and much of the food of the city is reflective of that, but the particular story of bunny chow is that it was used in past days (when servants were the rule and styrofoam didn't exist) as a way for servants to carry hot lunches to their bosses. The word for boss sounded, to English ears, something like "bunny", and so what had been called "boss chow" got its new name.

We spent some of our first day in Durban hanging out downtown, after successfully visiting the U.S. Consulate to get additional visa pages added to our passports. We visited an impressive art museum in the City Hall, which also has a natural history museum and a library branch, and walked around the surrounding streets a bit. We really liked the feel of the city-- vibrant was the main word that kept coming to mind, with the streets full of people walking, shopping, eating, and working. There was a dense concentration of small businesses, and a swarming outdoor market with long lines at the bunny chow stand. Alec estimates that, since the end of apartheid, when the restrictions on which "race" could live in the city finally ended, the population of Durban has shifted from about 95% white to 95% non-white. It felt a bit like walking around Park Street in Hartford. Also like Hartford, Durban has been busily developing its waterfront, although we must admit that the scale of their projects certainly dwarfs ours. Durban's municipal budget runs in the black, even as they build new stadiums for World Cup 2010 and keep the city beachfront in beautiful shape. We spent a thoroughly unintellectual but very fun day at the largest waterfront development, an aquarium and water-park where we oggled unlikely-looking fish, watched a dolphin show, and scooted down water slides.

Arriving in Johannesburg had quite a different feel, as the Baz Bus drove from one extensively-secured suburban hostel to another. Our hostel ran regular shuttles to a couple different places in the city-- the museum, a mall-- but strongly discouraged walking anywhere, and did not offer any opportunities to go out at night, such as for a jazz show as we'd been hoping. We felt pretty stuck, between the fear that the hostel worked to instill in us and, moreso, the high cost of getting around by taxi, given the dismal state of public transportation in the city. Every house in the suburbs had a solid fence topped with razor-wire, a gated driveway, a sign warning passers-by of armed guards on call. Is this how Canadians look at Americans, with our alarm systems and locked doors?


The first of our two days in Jo'burg was spent at the Apartheid Museum, an extensive, moving collection. I was very impressed with the museum both from a historiographic perspective and from a tourist's perspective. The museum was chock full of well-presented artifacts-- video footage of speeches and police beatings, photos, decrees, etc.-- and, through a smart counterpuntal exhibit, analyzed the factors behind the rise of apartheid, the effects of apartheid on life in South Africa, and the resistance to apartheid thoughtfully and simultaneously. The explanation, for instance, of how race and class were manipulated by the nationalist leaders to leverage the support of poor Afrikaaners was nuanced without being exculpating; the presentation of resistance movements and leaders was similarly complex, not idolatrous. We spent hours reading the texts and examining the photos, and could have spent much longer. But the museum was also well set up for the large portion of visitors who don't have or want to spend so much time; just walking through the exhibits, as we saw many people doing, one could still get a strong sense of the horrors of apartheid and the power of resistance. In our view, they missed a lot, but at least they got something.

We did have a rather unpleasant experience leaving the museum: the taxi we were in broke down on the highway, and we had to sit in it for 45 minutes waiting for another taxi from the same company to retrieve us. And then they wanted to be paid the full (and very high) fare! We disagreed.

Our second day in Jo'burg, and last day in South Africa, was spent in Soweto. Until we actually spent time there, Soweto loomed in somewhat mythic proportions in our heads: the center of the great student resistance movement that started in 1976, the one-time home to leaders like Steve Biko, Nelson Mandela, and Desmond Tutu-- and also one of the world's most notorious ghettoes, a word synonomous with poverty and despair. So we thought. The Soweto we were introduced to, in a day of walking and taking local minibuses with a local guide, Eunice, was immeasurably more multilayered, more alive, and more spirited than anything we had ever read or heard about it had led us to believe.

We spent time in three neighborhoods-- the first surprise for us being that Soweto HAD neighborhoods. What we had pictured as a monolithic area of shacks was actually a whole metropolis in itself, home to 4 million people (a Kiwi we met that morning said that was equal to the whole country of New Zealand). We started in Orlando East, a working-class area composed almost entirely of the brick homes that every family is entitled to apply for once. Many of these one-room houses had been added onto (at the owner's expense); many also had one or more shacks in the backyard, lived in sometimes by family members in Soweto seeking work, sometimes by renters who were on the waiting list for a government house. Our first stop was in the shack where one of the guides lived, where we spent some time talking to her sister-in-law, who is a local activist focusing on issues of violence against women. As we left the shack and walked along the streets, we were struck by the absence of security fences, and the presence of children playing and people walking-- streetlife that was absent from the suburban area where the hostel was. We were also shown the house where Mpanza, known as "the father of Soweto" for his fight to get housing built there, had lived.

Leaving Orlando East, we took a minibus to Kliptown, a severely neglected area that fit more closely to our prior image of Soweto. This neighborhood has neither electricity nore plumbing, garbage pick-up nor schools: the government wants people to leave the area, has wanted this for decades, and therefore does not provide any services to it. But of course the fact is that people do live there, lots of people, and the government's refusal to acknowledge this has only exacerbated the situation. On the outskirts of Kliptown, we visited the homes of two interesting people. The first, Porto Lollan, was a 75 year old "coloured" man whose house, under the initiation of his late brother, had hosted secret meetings of Mandela and other leaders in the years before they were imprisoned. He had an interesting collection of photos and newspaper articles, but we were quite put-off actually talking to him, as he said something like "Black people aren't fit to be president." After him, though, we met an extremely inspiring man, Bob, who ran an NGO called Soweto-Kliptown Youth. He himself had been an abandoned child, taken in by a local activist and, in his words, told that he mattered and given a chance at life. He has used that chance to work tirelessly and effectively to improve the lives of Kliptown children, running a variety of programs and initiatives. He now has links with a charitable fund of the NBA, and photos of giant basketball players sitting in too-small plastic chairs in Kliptown, watching children performs gumboots dances, line his walls. In his work, he has also deeply touched the lives of some American children; he runs an exhange program with the exclusive Nobles School in Boston, and has received emails from the parents of the privileged students who have spent time in Soweto saying they don't know what he did, but they thank him for the effects that time had on their children.

Our final stop of the day was Orlando West, now Soweto's wealthiest neighborhood (referred to as Beverly Hills), and the location of the main sights that tourists usually see. (We saw several groups of tourists, in vans and buses, stopping off for a few minutes at these places, on the "Soweto tours" offered by every travel agency-- we were so thankful that a man we'd met at Inkosana had told us about the walking tour instead!) These sights were certainly powerful: the corner where a 13 year old boy, Hector Pieterson, was shot by police in 1976, the first casualty of the Soweto student uprising; the memorial museum for Hector Pieterson, overseen by his sister; Vilakazi Street, where Tutu and Mandela lived and where Pieterson was shot. But what will stick with us even more is the feeling of walking around the Soweto streets, of spending time in a neighborhood in the full sense of the word-- a real place, with problems certainly, but also with pride, with spirit, with identity.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Sweet Mountain Retreat

We spent part of last week at the Inkosana Lodge in the central Drakensberg range, and can officially say it was the nicest place we've paid to stay at any point on this trip. Composed of one airy, low-roofed but high-ceilinged main building, and a series of thatched-roof huts all set within a multi-level yard and garden area, almost every window, path, and seating area at the lodge had views of the tufted green mountains a short distance away. Our hut had autumnal batik curtains with elephat motifs, and a traveler-suited design in addition to the fine aesthetics, with lots of tucked-away shelf space and a wooden clothes rack. (More and more, we are finding that things like having lots of hooks, a large sink for hand-washing, and good knives in the kitchen make the big difference between feeling thrilled or frustrated by the places we stay.) The kitchen at Inkosana also definitively topped our "best" list, with castiron kettles and ant-free brown sugar available for use. And in addition, there was the pool, a spring-fed, cast-cement version of a fancy suburban infinity pool, where we could soak in the cool and the view.

We had three main activities during our time at Inkosana: hiking, lounging, and eating. In the former category, we started out, the afternoon of our arrival, with just a walk along the roads near the lodge, which contained the delicious finger-staining surprise of a whole row of blackberry bushes laden with a first crop of ripe berries. Erik braved the brambles to pick them, while I supportively held out the bag to fill and tried not to eat them as soon as they came off the branch. The following day we just got our legs a little warmer, hiking in the morning from a meadow, down through a damp and (to me) claustrophobic forest, to a waterfall. The highlight of the hike was coming upon a troop of baboons, who sent out a couple of guards to bark angrily at us while the rest of the group ran away. The best hike, though, came the next day. We set out on a cloudy morning with a friendly, interesting Canadian couple we'd met at breakfast and headed up through forest into a long, gently climbing stretch of meadow (where Erik got in touch with his Swiss roots by attempting a little yodeling, with some measure of success). Once we reached the end of that trail, at the point where a final peak ascent would start, we turned and began to traverse the grassy ridgeline. On our way to the shallow pool that was our goal and picnic spot, we spotted a white-tailed antelope and watched as lightning flashed and crackled on other parts of the mountains, bringing with it thunder that lasted for a Beethoven-length timpani roll. When we reached the pool, the sun was bright and hot, although the wind tormening the grasses suggested another storm ahead. As we headed back along the ridge, that storm hit, bringing not just thunder and lightning (not too close) but also hail, which we waited out under some trees. The storm subsided for the rest of our descent-- then, just as we reached the parking lot, opened up full force, pouring down sheets of rain that continued for a couple hours. But by that point, we were back at the lodge, luxuriating in the comfort of a good day of activity. We did one more hike the next day, going back up to the end of the trail but skipping the ridge walk this time, and rounded out our time with another blackberry picking mission before going back to our regular backpacker life on the bus.

But what of those other two categories, lounging and eating? A joy in their own right, the hikes also provided pleasant justification for those activities. The windowledge in our little hut made a perfect table for afternoon tea and cookies (a habit I am completely ready to take up when we get home!) Ed, the owner of Inkosana, made wonderful hard, biscotti-like cookies called rusks which were perfectly suited for tea-dipping, and which I now have the recipe for (although I may need to find a way to modify the pound of butter called for in the original...). We would sit in our room reading and drinking tea, as afternoon thunderstorms invariably pounded and danced outside. The showers were walled but open-roofed; as the cold water of the rain mixed with the hot water of the faucet, we could watch the lightning touching down on the hills and illuminating the sky. Most nights the rain would quiet before dinner, allowing us to get to the main lodge or the kitchen unsoaked. Along with being a baker, Ed was an excellent cook, preparing huge, heavy dinners for many guests each night. We enjoyed eating his food once, but also enjoyed the opportunity it gave us to splurge on more gourmet groceries than we usually get-- since the only choices were Ed's restaurant (pricey, for us) or groceries, spending a little more than usual still meant spending less than the alternative. So we grilled (or braied, in South African) steak, lunched on smoked salmon, and ate strawberries and peaches with fresh cream so thick it needed to be scooped with a spoon. We were completely spoiled for four days, and enjoyed every moment of it.

Babes (and Dudes) in Backpackerland

Leaving Andrea and Adam, we caught a ride with the bride and groom to Kimberley, with another man in the front seat so Rachel, the bride and I sat in the back seat of the small car, us holding our luggage and she holding wedding presents on our laps. Our train wasn't scheduled to depart until later that night, so we walked to The Big Hole. No surprises here--it is a very big hole, the largest open pit diamond mine in the world. We went through the museum, which did an ok job of telling the story of how the discovery of diamonds in 1867 helped shape South Africa's history. Eventually the English imperialist Cecil Rhodes won out in the struggle to control the diamond mines.

We didn't have the best feeling waiting at the Kimberley train station, after hearing so many stories about crime in South Africa, and with the circumstances being similar to the night in Palenque (Mexico) when we had to sit on the floor for a long time at night in an overcrowded station, and then our camera ended up being stolen on the ride. But, while the train ride certainly wasn't the most comfortable, fortunately that's where the similarities to our Palenque experience ended. We'd booked third class tickets (the first class was full), and the waiting area was packed with families: kids first playing/sliding across, and then sleeping on blankets spread out on the floor. After about an hour's delay we finally boarded the train, uncomfortably trying to sleep on top of our big packs in order to decrease the possibilities of having something stolen. When we tried to squeeze ourselves into the seat a man said it was no problem to put the bags on the luggage racks, and he was probably right: it seemed to be what everyone else did, and, with babies and kids all around us, the family atmosphere continued for the entire trip. Creeping along the tracks through the barren Karoo desert, the train was extremely cold at night and then very hot during the day. The trip was scheduled to take 18 hours; fortunately we were able to get off before Cape Town and catch a commuter train to our destination, Stellenbosch, arriving there about 5pm.

From Stellenbosch until Durban (in between staying with Servas hosts and Manyeding village), we were a part of the "backpacker scene" (hostels, as well as the individuals carrying the backpacks, are called "Backpackers" in South Africa). Although some of the Backpackers made us feel a little older, for the most part they were well set up for budget travel: more amenities like kitchens, swimming pools, and bars than we were used to, as well as being nicer overall than Egypt and Ghana's budget offerings, and of course more social.

Stellenbosch is the second oldest town in South Africa, in the heart of the wine region. There is a university but the term had just ended and students gone home, so the town felt quiet and relaxed. After settling in to the "Stumble Inn," we sat around their backyard fire pit, went out to a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant, and were happy to catch up on some sleep. The next day we took a wine tour: 4 vineyards with 5 tastings at each, in addition to one cheese tasting and lunch. A beautiful sunny day, it was a fun tour--we learned a little about wine and enjoyed hanging out with everyone on the tour.

Trying to rest and prepare dinner back at the backpackers, we were a little annoyed by loud music and voices. While we were eating we were glad to talk with Betty and Carla, professors from a small college in Nebraska (whose students we had been annoyed at earlier) who were leading a semester in Africa for 15 students. The students read several books, traveled together on public transport through multiple countries, and did a one week apprenticeship in Malawi. It was really inspiring to talk with them, one of those conversations that happened at the perfect time to lift our spirits. Betty actually has a book coming out in Feb. about her experiences called "Africa on Six Wheels: A Semester on Safari" (BettyLevitov, check out www.doane.edu for more info).

Leaving Stellenbosch, we boarded the hop on/hop off Baz Bus for the first time. South Africa has pretty terrible public transport (probably the worst we've seen actually, maybe rivalled by Egypt), so although the Baz Bus was expensive and had some restrictions on what days we could travel (and was sometimes late etc.), the fact that it not only got us from place to place, but also took us door to door to the Backpackers was a definite plus. It was also a nice way to socialize with people, and to see them again during different legs of our trip. On this day we spent the entire day on the bus, made a little more tolerable by watching "Shrek" and the scenery of the Western Cape coast: first rolling farmland and then beautiful coastline. Around 8pm we finally arrived at our destination, Hikers Haven in Nature's Valley.

Hiker's Haven is a converted vacation home, and with the owners' old books and decorations around it still had that feel--a very nice place. Nature'sValley is a small community (no bank but one all purpose grocery/restaurant/pub) in Tsitsikama National Park, a gorgeous location.The next day we went for a hike with an English and a German woman. The variety of scenery was incredible: we started along the coast, first on sand and then on jagged black rocks, then climbed up through the trees to the mouth of Salt River. From there we ascended again until we reached an open meadow plateau, and finally descended into the valley, following a stream through rain forest. Rachel (barely) overcame her fear of snakes to trail blaze off the path to the road, where we hitched a ride back to town to get out of the rain. As we were making dinner and planning an early bedtime, we got a call from the pub from the people who drove us back to town: Kathy, originally from Minnesota, and her husband Henny, an Afrikaaner. We had a very interesting conversation with them on race (more on that in an upcoming blog).

The next day we walked a little more along the beach, before catching the Baz Bus that evening and making a required stop in Port Elizabeth. Crossing into the Eastern Cape, we moved from the tourism-designated Garden Route to the Wild Coast, and also into the former Ciskei (one of the segregated "Homelands" for Blacks). Back on the road next morning, we arrived around midday at Buccaneers Backpackers in Cintsa, dubbed by the travel guide as the best in South Africa. As the clouds cleared and the sun came out, we tried our luck with a free canoe on a shallow lagoon, before participating in the daily "free activity" and more importantly, the free boxed wine that accompanied it. After a little rag-tag ping-pong and a lot of boxed wine, I was ready to call it a night (at 6:30) but Rachel was up for more socializing and a game of "Killer Pool" (billiards where everyone takes turns).

Buccaneers was really well set up: what started with a grassy hillside back in the '80s now has trees everywhere, with the main building on the hill and accomodations stretching down to the pool and the beach. We had bunk beads in the dorm with a fantastic view over the water. The next day of lounging on the beach unfortunately didn't prepare me for that day's activity, where instead of the wine doing me in, this time it was the sumo wrestling competition that left me with what seems to be a bruised rib muscle that is gradually healing (let the record show that I did win the match). After dinner we hung out a little, and I was only barely able to outlast Rachel, staying up to the late hour of about 10:30.

The next day we enjoyed a little more time by the pool before getting on the Baz Bus around noon for the long ride to Durban. They usually have a trailer for the big backpacks, but today it was broken so for a stretch of the ride we had to cram our packs into the aisle of the bus, which feels ok when taking the local minibuses (like from Kimberley to Kuruman), but not when we're paying what we are for Baz. Arriving in Durban at 11:30 p.m., our Servas host Alec picked us up, and Tracey had dinner waiting for us. Back with the adult crowd, we stayed up talking until around 2 a.m.--later than any night during our adventures in Backpackerland!

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Wedding Crashers 2: Manyeding Village

There aren't too many situations I can think of when 60 hours of being in a place would be worth 40+ hours of travel to get there and away. I wouldn't be too keen to fly from Hartford to Australia for a weekend, for example, although if somehow I could get home from here for one day with friends and family I would certainly do that. Anyway, I digress. The point is, this weekend we had the happy experience of several ridiculously long travel days being fully worthwhile for the couple days we got to spend in between. We visited a friend of Erik's from high school, Andrea, and her husband Adam in the village of Manyeding--four hours north of the diamond city of Kimberley-- where they have been in the Peace Corps for the last 15 months. The particular timing of the visit was centered on their host brother's wedding, which we were generously invited to attend.

Following the local tradition, this was actually the second wedding for the couple-- the first was held a few month's ago in the bride's hometown. However, the fact that it wasn't the first or only celebration did nothing to lessen the scale of the party preparations on the part of the groom's family. When we arrived, a large tent had been set up in the family's front yard, and was full of men hanging decorations and children cleaning tables and chairs. Meanwhile, in the back yard, the groom's mother, sister, aunts, and female cousins were chopping vegetables, stirring massive fire-black kettles, cutting meat, and washing endless cycles of dishes-- activities that Andrea said had been going on all week, and which would continue throughout the weekend. Innards of the two cows and one sheep the family had slaughtered for the celebration were hanging out to dry on the fence post (they make up the traditional night-before-the-wedding dinner, although we chose to eat pasta with Andrea and Adam instead...).

Saturday morning, the dawn was broken by the joyful ululations of the women of the groom's family: the bride and her family, having driven all night in a red minibus, picking people up along the way, had arrived. As out-of-town guests continued to show up throughout the morning, the ululations continued as well, as they did throughout the ceremony itself. A bit after 10, we heard clapping and singing, and went outside to find two groups slowly, rhythmically, melodically making their way toward each other: the women of the groom's family, with him in the center, moving from their yard outward on the village road, and the women of the bride's family, with her in the center, moving from the village road in toward the house. Eventually the two groups met, with ululations and song resounding; then they all turned together to walk to the tent the bride and groom in front of the group, and a couple women symbolically sweeping the path before them with brooms made of brush.

For the first wedding, the bride and groom had worn American-style clothes, but for this one they wore variations on traditional attire, to stunning effect. His shirt and the top layer of her dress were mocha-colored matte silk, while his pants and the under layer of her dress were the same material in a clear sky blue. She had a head wrap of the same fabrics, and also wore a double strand of ping pong ball-sized dark wooden beads around her neck, and matching (but smaller) earrings. Both his shirt and her dress were embroidered with almond-sized, cream colored shells. They sat at the front, at a table on a raised platform decorated with miniature cooking pots, impala skins, and gourds, some of which also graced the tables where the guests sat down. The ceremony was conducted entirely in Tsetswana, the local language, but thanks to a program made by Adam, and some translation by Andrea, we could follow what was going on. An Anglican priest performed a length religious ceremony, interrupted at times by songs when one woman would sing out a first line, and then other people would join in, singing in several-part harmony and dancing at their places. Twice the bride and groom were brought out to dance, led around by their cousins. When the priest was through, there were speeches by two of the older aunts, and some of the couples' friends, followed by toasts and prayers. And then... lunch. The women brought out the bucketfuls of food they had been preparing, dishing up groaning plates of pap (a heavy maize porridge), rice, mutton, and beef, with dottings of vegetables as accompaniment. While the tent had not been completely full when the wedding started, by lunch people were packed in and spilling out into the yard; invitations are not issued, so much of the population of the village comes out for the meal. Indeed, people continued showing up, sitting around, and eating well into the night, and the families stuck around throughout the following day as well-- all of this with no catering, just home cooking! Eek.
On Sunday we were able to see more of the village and hear more from Andrea and Adam about some of the issues they have faced there. They have four schools, one in Manyeding and three in other villages, on their circuit, and have found that the quality of the schools varies massively, according to the will of the teachers and principals-- unfortunately, there is basically no accountability from above. The government has provided some decent resources-- we were particularly impressed by sets of books on AIDS and anti-Apartheid leaders-- but the utilization of these resources is weak. Andrea and Adam have painted world maps, with every country labeled, on a wall of each of their schools, and are putting together lesson plans to try to avoid a similar fate for that initiative. Some of the other main challenges they talked about in the village are AIDS, alcoholism, and unemployment; general health and brain drain are also on the list.
The combination of sometimes feeling total despair at problems that seem insurmountable, and sometimes feeling inspired and moved by the strengths that exist despite so many problems, is something we empathize with from our own work in Hartford. More than once, though, Andrea and Adam told us that although they will not be able to have the largescale impact they dreamed of when they signed up for Peace Corps, the positive effects of their time in the village on both their host family and other villagers, and, especially, on them, have been great. It is stereotypical, but true: knowing people changes your perceptions of them; knowing other lifestyles changes your perceptions of your own life. It is a great threat to prejudice; it could stop war. If only everyone could have an experience like that.
Want to read more? Adam and Andrea's blog is www.thaboandlerato.blogspot.com.

Glimpses of Apartheid

In Cape Town, we visited the District 6 Museum and Robben Island, giving us small glimpses into the history of apartheid in South Africa. (We've been overwhelmed by the prominence of race here as the defining issue, and plan to write a post specifically on this topic at the end of our time here--for now we'll stick to the specific sights.)

District 6 is a neighborhood of Cape Town near the water which was a poor but very mixed area; inhabited by Blacks, "Coloreds" (the South African term for a mix of black and white), Jews, Indians, and "Malays" (the term for Muslims). The first forced removals from the neighborhood happened in 1901, when local officials declared it a sanitation hazard. In the 1960s, all nonwhite residents of District 6 were forced to relocate: Blacks into nearby ghetto areas called "townships," other groups into their own separate areas. The museum houses a huge amount of personal photos and artifacts from the people who were forced out. Begun as a temporary exhibit in the early 90s, it was so popular that the museum found permanent housing in a former neighborhood church. According to Lonely Planet, the museum remains as popular with former residents as it does with tourists.

It was interesting to read about the interaction of the Garden City/Le Corbusier ideas of urban planning within this particular hyper-racialized context. After the residents were removed and the area cleared, several projects were built but most of the land remains vacant today, the object of ongoing claims by former residents and potential developers. The wealth of objects and information presented in the museum showed how the removal affected people's lives, but sometimes it seemed to understate the historical responsibility of the people and government for what occurred, displaying it as a tragedy but one which is safely behind us. Rachel noticed that one visitor had written in the guestbook "I'm ashamed to be white." That feeling is important for the past, but there also needs to be responsibility for the present.

We also visited Robben Island, which had been used as a prison since the Dutch arrival in the 1600s (the only successful escape happened in one of those early years) until it was recently converted to a museum. Taking the ferry from Cape Town's wealthy waterfront, we could look back and see the city framed by the awesome Table Mountain, a view that African National Congress (ANC) prisoners took as inspiration for the land they would one day return to. The visit was a contrast between the comfort (and of course freedom) that we experienced as tourists in a landscape that could have been any coastal vacation spot, and the awful conditions and degradation that prisoners experienced here. Arriving at the island, we saw photos of the ANC prisoners arriving in the 1960s, and when we were loaded onto our bus passed under the original sign: recalling the "Arbeit Macht Frei," of a Nazi concentration camp (which were first employed by the British against the white Afrikaaners in the Boer War), this sign read "We Serve with Pride." On the bus, we passed through the village, where some former prisoners who work as tour guides now live. The highlight was the limestone quarry where Mandela and ANC leaders were isolated and sentenced to hard labor, going blind from the sun on the limestone and getting TB from the limestone dust. During their lunch break, they would go to their "classroom": the tunnel in the limestone used as a latrine, telling the guards they were looking for shade but actually teaching each other from the chapters of the books they had read.

In the prison itself, our guide was Sparks, who was imprisoned in 1983-1990 for being a member of the military wing of the ANC, the MK or "Spear of the Nation." Everything about the prison life was based on segregating by race: Coloreds could wear long sleeves, pants and shoes while Blacks had to wear short sleeves, shorts and no shoes during the cold, windy and rainy winters. Food rations were also different by race. We saw Mandela's cell where he was imprisoned for 18 years, and the courtyard where he hid his autobiography, eventually transported out by the man who would one day become the Minsiter of Transportation!

At the end of the tour, our guide Sparks announced that we were privileged to have with us on the tour a former warden at the prison, who hesitantly, briefly raised his hand when Sparks requested, and said only that he had worked on Robben Island from 1976 to 1983, and at another prison after that. One Black tour member asked the warden if there were any Black wardens, to which of course he replied that there weren't. Sparks went on to speak of the reconciliation that has occurred, how he wasn't personally angry and how people need to live together now. However, as the group filed past him to reboard the ferry and journey back to Cape Town, we noticed that, unlike most tour members, the warden did not shake Sparks's hand. From the history of apartheid, some reconciliation does seem to have occurred, but much also seems to remain.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

At Home in Cape Town

After our little fiasco with Ethiopian Airlines, we were very happy to actually arrive in South Africa, and spent our first afternoon enjoying the beautiful air of Cape Town (and the 20 degree F difference between the temperature there and in Accra). Before dinner, we were picked up by our SERVAS hosts, Penny (human) and Cadeau (dog). As it's turned out, this has been a jack-pot, so to speak, of SERVAS experiences: Penny is warm, generous, thoughtful, interesting, and fun. From the two nights we were planning to stay with her, she opened her house up for five, which among other advantages allowed us to rest up, do some reading, and get some of the musty smell out of our clothes, which have finally been taken out of our backpacks. She cooked lovely dinners served with lovely wine, facilitated our touristing, and included us in her outings. And on top of that, Cadeau is ridiculously cute.

We've gotten to do a few hikes in our days here on the Cape. Penny has two hiking groups, one on Sundays and one on Tuesdays, which we've joined for loping walks through a rich forest and a sea-view scrub-covered hill. On both hikes, it was a pleasure to talk to her hiking companions, one of whom in particular stood out for having been the personal chaplain to Desmond Tutu for 20 years. In between the two group hikes, we went up Table Mountain on our own. It was a steep climb, so much so that at times it was dizzying to look out to the city and bay below; more strikingly, though, the climb was breathtakingly beautiful. There was a certain kind of unapologetically pink wildflower growing all over the lower 3/4 of the mountain, which was so exuberant in its pinkness-- here a sea of it, there a few defiant survivors growing out of rock-- that it made me giggle and gasp with every blink of my eyes. The trail up was somewhat crowded, as trails go, with twentysomethings by far the dominant demographic. The top of the mountain, though, where the cable car lets out, was a different story. There was a church group there of at least 300 people-- it seemed to be a convention of churches from all over southern Africa. Everyone was exquisitely dressed, the men in full suits and hats, the women in billowing, daisy-bright skirts and blouses, with matching hats and high heels. Although there were non-church tourists up there too, they were completely subsumed by the wave of church ladies. They were really a sight equal to the views of Cape Town spreading to the sea below.

We got another immersion in the flora of the Cape (a unique biome, called the fynbos, which is 80% endemic species) at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, a sprawling, sloping park with winding paths and open lawns, all replete with plants. There were also some goofy looking guinea fowl walking around, posing for photographs just like the squirrels in Harvard Yard; we saw a couple mongoose, too, playing a spastic hide-and-seek in the brush. The most prevalent species, though, was the Cape Town Hipster, a distinctive form of Homo sapien that came oozing into the park for a free concert as we, in our rather un-hip hiking clothes (see photo of Erik entitled "Cool Cat") were heading out.

Our most exciting species-spotting, although it certainly did not require any wilderness skills, was of the penguins that live just outside of Cape Town. They are African penguins, about 18 inches tall and pleasantly round; when they want to lie down, they simply tip forward and land on their stomachs, looking like one of those toys with the round base that will lean from side to side but never fall. We saw the penguins at the beginning of their molting period, during which they don't eat, so they were not playing in the water, but standing on the rocks or sand, their heads angled up toward the sun. Some were digging nests, which involved lying on their bellies in the sand and using their feet like rotorooters to gouge out a hole, sand flying out behind them. We've seen too many ads for "Happy Feet" lately, and were slightly expecting the penguins to jump into a song and dance routine, but even without that, they were pretty wonderful to watch.

On our last night in Cape Town, we went out with Penny to an African restaurant on a touristy street downtown. It felt a bit strange, especially after eating African food without much pomp regularly in Ghana, to be at a place claiming some kind of authenticity and attracting, of course, only non-Africans (more on that theme in the next entry). But despite that, it was a fun atmosphere, and the game meats that are their specialty were very tasty. We felt sad to be saying goodbye to Penny, who has made us feel nothing but at home for all the time we've invaded her house, but also happy to have had such a warm start to South Africa.

Monday, November 27, 2006

Bookends: Leaving Ghana

As we left the beach at Kokrobite to spend our final days in Accra, little did we expect that the end of our time in Ghana would prove similar to the beginning (or at least the coming and going parts). Our first afternoon in Accra we checked into the Date hotel, recommended by the travel guide as the best budget hotel option in the city. While it wasn't too unpleasant, all we can say for Lonely Planet's sake is that we hope the competition in this category is extremely weak. At lunch we tried pepper soup, checking off another traditional dish (one that we'd been reading about in Ben Okri's The Famished Road) from our list, and then checked internet at Busy Internet, a huge, slick internet cafe that I think claimed to be the largest in Africa.

That evening we had our first Servas (the world peace hosting organization that we signed up but had so far been unsuccessful in contacting people) interaction, meeting up with Lionel and Dolly, an early-30s middle class couple. They picked us up at our hotel and bought us dinner at Papaye, a popular chicken restaurant in the Osu neighborhood (Accra's high end neighborhood, but which still has a lot of elements, like street vendors, which make the claim that it's just like London's Oxford Street seem a little exaggerated). It was great to talk with them, and we were the first Servas people they had interacted with as well, and we hope that it was a good start in Servas for both parties!

The next day we went to the museum, which had a variety of traditional cultural artifacts (including a necklace of human teeth from the Congo) on display. The most interesting parts for us were the exhibits on the slave trade. One followed the slave trading ship Fredensborg on its triangular route from Denmark to Ghana to the Carribbean and back towards Denmark, where it sank and was discovered in the 1970s. The evidence of the ship's records and daily life that was retrieved from the ocean floor made for a compelling and harrowing story. While Denmark was first nation to outlaw slavery (in 1792?), they had transported tens of thousands in the years leading up to then.

That afternoon, we met Henrietta, our first actual host with Servas, who picked us up at our hotel and took us to a business networking event at the British High Commission (Embassy, in American-speak) where she works. We drank a beer in the social room at the junior officers' residence area, and listened to an update from the High Commissioner (ambassador) on Ghana's upcoming 5oth anniversary, China's involvement in Africa, and the events in Cote D'Ivoire (which he asked the audience not to view as a positive long-term development, despite the fact that so many businesses are currently relocating from Cote D'Ivoire to Ghana). We then listened to speakers from the Ghana Stock Exchange and someone from the Commission on corporate social responsibility, while the audience reacted in a stereotypically boorish and rude manner. Afterwards we learned about some of the extreme and blatant discrimination that occurs in the High Commission office itself, some of the examples being that Ghanaian employees are payed something like 1/6 of British employees, and Ghanaians are not guaranteed parking spaces. After the event we drove to Henrietta and her husband Kojo's home over unpaved roads with huge craters.

The next day was Thanksgiving. Kojo, who works in marketing for billboards, took us with him to a meeting with the Jaguar car dealership, and then for a quick tour of the Coca-Cola bottling plant where his cousin works before we meet up with John from Sogakope and went to collect the dress and shirt we'd had made with local fabric. Our lunchtime meal on Thanksgiving consisted of pizza and beer at a gas station rest stop area. When we returned to Kojo and Henrietta's home, a friend of theirs took us to an internet cafe, where we used the Skype program (calling through the computer) for the first time. It seemed like it took a long time for us to find the internet cafe, and shortly after we did, the power went out. We perservered, and although the power went out again we were happy to hear our family's voices (and sad we couldn't be sharing the holiday with them!). When we returned home late, Henrietta made us banku and tilapia, the same as our very first meal in Ghana.

The banku was the first thing that made us think of a bookend, since we assumed it was our last meal in Ghana. Unfortunately, the more significant bookend was our trouble leaving Ghana, just as we'd had difficulty obtaining the visa to arrive. When we went to the airport the next morning, they told us that they don't do electronic tickets. We're unsure where our paper tickets are and what happened on the travel agency's end, but long story short we were able to rebook, should get a refund on the unused tickets, and actually ended up getting to Cape Town both earlier and with less time waiting around in the airport. So, like with the visa, what was at first a very frustrating experience worked out ok, and taught us a little more patience and flexibility. The rest of that afternoon we ate lunch with John, who was nice enough to stay with us while we rebooked, then went to an internet cafe and hung out in the same chain restaurant we'd eaten lunch at yesterday, and actually finished a crossword puzzle together. Returning to the airport that night, 12 hours after we were first there, we were glad to finally be getting on the plane but also very glad for the time we did spend in Ghana.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Touring Along Ghana's Coast

One of our constant companions in the time spent in the Ghanaian Embassy in Cairo was a large, techincolor-quality poster of Elmina Castle, advertizing it as the oldest European building in Sub-Saharan Africa. Built by the Portuguese in 1482, it was taken over by the Dutch 150 years later, and used by them until the British got it in the late 1800s. But of course, like other castles along the West African coastline, this served only secondarily as a domain for European royalty. Primarily, it was a fortress for holding captured people until they could be loaded onto ships as slaves.

From the first sight of the fort from the road, it was overwhelming, disturbing, and nauseatingly spooky to think that, in a physical sense, the Middle Passage started here. Following a guide through the rooms as he spoke about their uses only increased that feeling. There were the male and female dungeons, and the deeper dungeon that he called "the room of no return," from which the loading of the captives into the underbellies of the ships actually took place. (The ocean no longer reaches up to the door, but it used to; indeed, the dungeons were designed to increase the terror of the captives, most of whom were from the interior and had never seen or heard of the ocean before, by surrounding them with the thunderous sound of the waves crashing against the outer walls). He also showed us the cell where drunken or disorderly Dutch soldiers would be locked for the night, complete with two windows to circulate air. By contrast, the cell next door, for Africans who challenged the slave traders, was airless. Men and women were locked in there to starve to death for their crime of resistance, and the bodies were only removed after the last one had died. One of the sicker elements of the castle was that the governor's rooms, a series of spacious chambers on the upper floor, had courtyard balconies and windows looking directly down over the entrances to the dungeons. You could almost imagine him sipping Medeira and smoking a pipe, looking with satisfaction over the cargo that would bring in his next payload.

The town of Elmina itself was a bustling sensory experience. Although the castle is one of the biggest attractions in Ghana, the tourist industry has scarcely registered on the consciousness of the town as a whole (not a bad thing, to be sure), and it still has the feeling of a vibrant small fishing and trade town. Brightly-painted wooden boats moved regularly between beach and ocean, sometimes passing the narrow inlet that divides one side of town from the other to deliver their catch to the market area. The market itself looked from above like a bed of zinnias-- a densely packed, stunningly colorful mass of what turned out to be people, energetically engaged in buying and selling small silver fish. Elsewhere, women carried aluminum basins, 3 feet in diameter and brimming with fish, on top of their heads, never registering any disturbance to their balance in the busy streets. The scene heading away from the castle and market, along a beach lined with fishing shacks and dominated by laughing children playing in the water, looked idyllic viewed from the castle. As we actually walked it, though, it was a bit depressing: trash and animal (and human?) waste lined the area where the children played, and was home to several nasty vultures digging through the fish corpses; sewage water tricked steadily to the ocean from the clustered tin-roofed shacks; and larger groups of men sat around by the boats, chatting while the women minded children and food stands.

The next day we had quite a different activity, taking a tro tro (public transportation van) out to a small patch of tropical rainforest 30 kilometers inland, Kakum National Park. The main attraction of the park is a canopy walkway, a series of seven bridges with metal ladders covered with plywood as their base and thick netting as their sides, suspended 90 feet above the ground between viewing platforms attached to massive trees. The hundreds of Ghanaian school children visiting the park the same time we were prevented it from being a meditative nature experience, and we didn't see any of the monkeys, elephants, or 600 species of butterfly that live in the park, but walking through the canopy between the trees was an awesome feeling all on its own. As I'm usually afraid of heights, I was careful to follow the rule about not looking down at first, but as I went on I got bolder, and more curious-- the coolness of the view down and across the canopy was worthwhile, but in the end I couldn't try it more than once. After the canopies, we took a short guided walk through the rainforest to learn about trees and other plants. It was cool, except for two unfortunate occasions of stepping into groups of hyper-aggressive biting ants, who managed to get themselves into our shoes before we'd even seen them on the ground. Some also made their way into my pants (I think my first time actually ever experiencing ants in the pants), where they showed their intention to bite all over, so I had to pull them down and have Erik pick the ants off my legs. Luckily, the hundreds of school children were not on the walk to see that.

Throughout this time, since Kumasi, we'd been traveling and hanging out with a great guy we met there, Marcus, an English free-lance journalist who had been in the Niger Delta working on a story about the conflicts there. He had spent three years in Mexico City previously, so it was very easy to form an initial connection over travel and beer, and as the three of us continued to take meals and visit tourist places (and eternally not-working internet cafes) together for close to a week, we logged a great variety of conversation-hours. We were all hankering for the beach, so the day after visiting Kakum we headed to Kokrobite, a fishing village/rastafarian enclave/ex-pat hang out just outside Accra.

We arrived just in time for Saturday night, a raucous, young-white-kid filled, music-pounding evening that might have been fun, had we not been exhausted. As there were no rooms left, we were staying in the loft, an open (but mosquito-netted) area directly behind the band and next to the bar-- which for that night meant that though we could go to bed early, we certainly couldn't fall asleep until late. In addition, though, the whole scene of the evening felt strange and sort of icky-- my impression of the crowd was that they saw Ghana as a cool backdrop for a party, and Ghanaians as interesting props within that, and that was about it. I have no doubt that my judgement was overbroad and unfair, but at the same time, there was something that just didn't feel right about it all. Happily, though, the big groups that had been there for the weekend took off Sunday afternoon, and Big Milly's turned into a relaxed beachside hangout. The only non-beach or food related activity we did in Kokrobite was go to a drumming, dance, and acrobatics show at the Academy of African Music and , a three-hour immersion in sound and movement that was tiring to watch, nevermind to actually perform. One of the astounding things to witness was the way the percussionists communicated as they played, engineering major changes in rhythm through subtle individual shifts. Otherwise, in addition to Marcus, we really enjoyed talking with an American couple who were traveling a bit in Ghana from Mali, where they have been living and starting a public health NGO. (The woman, who was one of the founders, was still in college-- we were very impressed). We also had conversations with some young people who are in Ghana as volunteers in orphanages. Talking with all of these smart, observant people-- like our earlier conversations with John in Sogakope-- was both heartening and disheartening, the former because of their energy and insights, but the latter because of all the destructive or unhopeful aspects of government and society that they face as obstacles to the change they are trying to bring around.

In this special week, we've had our share of longings for turkey with all the fixings and copious amounts of pie. But more than anything, we've been feeling great thanks for both this opportunity to travel and, especially, for the friends and family we are surrounded by, even so far away. We'll be thinking of you Thursday-- and hope you'll eat an extra piece of pie for us. Happy Thanksgiving.

Ashanti Culture in Kumasi

After John accompanied us to the chaotic bus station in Accra, we were "on our own" for the first time in Ghana, en route to Kumasi, Ghana's cultural capital and second-largest city. On the bus ride, we half-watched a couple of low quality, soap opera-like Nigerian movies. The basic storyline was the the woman being unfaithful/evil and being verbally and physically abused by the man. We talked with the person sitting next to us during the ride, who then before he got off asked other people on the bus to help us find a cab at our stop. Many people in Ghana have been really friendly and helpful in situations like this or even just asking directions, and unlike other places there's mostly not the undercurrent that some sort of "tip" is expected for such help.

In Kumasi we stayed at the Presbyterian Church guest house, a big, rambling building with a large grassy courtyard and balcolny. Feeling too tired to venture out, we settled for a meal of Guiness Malta, a non-alcoholic drink advertised as a health drink and tasting like Raisin Brain. The next morning, after an egg, bread and tea breakfast at a street stand we headed to the Ashanti Cultural Center. The Ashanti were one of the dominant groups in Ghana before being defeated by the British at the end of the 19th century (more on that later). The main attraction of the Cultural Center was seeing artisans at work making batiks, weaving kente cloth (the ceremonial, incredibly beautiful garment of the Ashantis, the pattern is often a patchwork), and wood carving, among others. Next we toured Manhyia Palace, which was built as the dwelling for the Ashanti king by the British in an attempted apology after they burned and looted the previous palace in 1896. At that time, they sent the Ashanti king Prempeh I into exile, first at Elmina Castle in Ghana and then in Sierra Leone, but his followers continued to make the trip on foot to visit the king so he was then sent to the Seychelles Islands (near Mauritius). The palace itself was an interesting collection of objects blending traditional and modern culture: Prempeh I was the first literate Ashanti king so his small bookshelf (containing multiple books on golf) is displayed, as well as Prempeh II's 1950s television, the first set in Ghana.

The Ashantis have a very different take on women than the Egyptians. The Ashanti king is chosen by the Queen mother, who is either the mother or sister of the current king. When the British were threating the Ashantis, it was the Queen mother who led the resistance. Interestingly, our tour guide repeated the phrase we'd heard earlier in the Nigerian movie from the bus as one of the reasons for the king being: "only a mother knows her child," meaning that lineage can only be certain from the mother, not the father.

We also quickly burrowed our way through the gigantic market in the middle of Kumasi, West Africa's largest. Rachel compared it to the chaos of Cairo traffic with the maze-like subterranean passages of Harvard's Widener Library. There was a Ghana-Australia soccer game televised, which the tourist office had mistakenly told us started at 2pm, so instead of watching the game we spent 4 hours at an incredibly slow internet cafe located on above a Shell station convenience mart. When we did go to an Indian restaurant to watch the game that night, we ended up talking with our new friend Marcus, who we've been traveling with since then.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Pop Quiz! Dubai: Cairo as…

a) French wine: Mexican, Turkish, or Egyptian wine
b) Jennifer Aniston hair: a mullet
c) Martha Stewart’s attic: Crazy Great Aunt Betsy’s attic
d) George Steinbrenner: Yogi Berra
e) One scoop of lemon sorbet: 3 scoops of gooey Ben and Jerry’s
f) All of the above

The answer to this quiz is F. How did you do? Dubai is, without question, more refined (a), stylish (b), and immeasurably neater (c) than Cairo. Like George Steinbrenner to Yogi Berra, in some coldly rational way it also makes a lot more sense (d)—but in the end, svelte and moderate as it may be, it’s decidedly more boring (e).

After the whole Ghanaian visa debacle, we were left with 36 hours in Dubai, an amount that turned out to be about all we could handle from both the budgetary and self-image perspectives. We are glad we got to see it, though. The post-Cairo shock of Dubai began immediately upon settling into our Emirates Air seats. The morning at the Cairo airport, like so much else in Cairo, had been chaotic—a taxi that failed to show, a couple hours in a cafeteria waiting for the check-in to open, a little visit with the Egyptian visa authorities to argue our right to leave the country without paying a fee (successful, but not without some palm-sweating moments), and a broken security device that meant switching gates a couple times. But on the plane it was another world. Flight attendants buzzed about catering to our every need, the seats were roomy and had fun rolling foot rests, and—coolest of all to us technology bumkins—there were hundreds of movies, new and old, and full music albums on demand, keeping us plugged in happily throughout the flight. The pattern continued on arrival in Dubai, where we were awed to walk without hassle through the impeccably organized airport, into a taxi with a meter, with a driver who followed lane lines and stop lights. Arriving at the youth hostel, though, we had our introduction to the other side of the Dubai coin—the cheapest place in town, one night at the hostel still ate up our budget for an entire day, and there was certainly no backpacker type feeling in the air.

On the upside, there was a television in the room, and waking up the next morning, 9 hours ahead of East Coast time, we had the joy of sitting in bed watching the election results coming in on CNN—no better way to start a day than with a long-awaited beating on the powers that be. After a little bit of gloating, we headed into town. (Another Cairo difference: We could take a city bus in Dubai, which actually carried the number of people that it had seats; in Cairo people were literally hanging out of the doors and windows of the buses, and tourists, expats, or anyone who could afford a taxi would not think of taking one of them.) We did our first round of imaginary shopping (or, accurately, I did some imaginary shopping while Erik pretended to pay attention to what I was pretending to buy) at the Gold Suq, a series of hundreds of stores selling gold jewelry in a dizzying array of extravagant, shimmering styles. To go along with the countless bangle bracelets (which I imaginarily bought for all of you, ladies, so I hope you like them), there were necklaces that could have weighed down an elephant, arm cuffs, tiaras, and even a sexy shirt of solid gold.

Leaving the suq with our credit cards unscathed, we walked along the wide creek that runs through downtown Dubai to the Dubai Museum, located in an old fort. The museum was a combination of a history of the development of Dubai, and a series of life-scale models showing examples of traditional crafts and lifestyles in the area, including both town-dwellers and Bedouin nomads in the desert. The story of Dubai’s astronomical growth over the last 50 years was striking—the population went from around 60,000 in the 1950s to 500,000 in the early 1990s, and is larger today, and physically the city grew from little more than a small, dusty port into an amalgamation of superlatives: tallest towers, most exclusive condominiums, biggest mall, and so on. Even more interesting, though, was the way the city presented itself through the exhibits. There was a subtext in the models of artisans’ workshops and Koran schools that felt familiar from visits to American natural history museums: there is room for these lifestyles in this museum, but out there in the real city, there is no place for them anymore.

As we sat at a creekside café, Erik smoking one last sheesha (water pipe with flavored tobacco) before saying goodbye to the Middle East, we continued to notice how diverse the people walking by were. In Egypt, we had never quite gotten used to the homogeneity of the population; there were foreigners, like our Danish friends, but they really stood out as foreigners; otherwise, besides small pockets of Sudanese refugees, it seemed that everyone was, by birth and ethnicity, Egyptian. By contrast, Dubai seemed to have as many Filipino, Chinese, and Indian people as it did Arabs. It felt markedly different to be in a multicultural setting again (and we enjoyed getting to eat Indian and Thai food!)

Sufficiently rested, we next tackled our biggest Dubai challenge: the Mall of the Emirates, the world’s largest mall. At first, what was overwhelming was the size; it took a good hour just to get our bearings and have some sense of the lay-out of the place. There were several soaring, metal-and-glass courtyard areas, with long rows of shops within and between them. At one end, next to one of several food courts (but not the one with women in cocktail dresses and stilettos waiting to get into the Armani café), was a viewing area overlooking the atrocious wonder of Ski Dubai—the indoor ski hill. Complete with a fire roaring in a stone fireplace, Ski Dubai had everything one could want for a winter getaway-- pine trees, sledding slope, chairlift, snow pants, and hip ski instructors to boot. Everything, that is, except for, say, the great outdoors, or any hint of authenticity. But maybe that’s the snobby New Englander in me speaking; the people playing inside their glass winter palace seemed to be enjoying themselves. Once we had adjusted to the scale of the mall, what became overwhelming was the fanciness of all of it, and, by sharp contrast, our own scruffiness. (For the sake of accuracy, again, I should admit that this didn’t faze Erik at all—only I felt like a pariah in my beat up travel clothes.) Everyone, it appeared, was dripping with money or, at the very least, on top of the most current fashions. This went for the observant black-robed women and white-robed men as well—the robes themselves were of fine fabrics, and their shoes, bags, and jewelry exhibited wealth as clearly as designer clothes did on other people. The shopping-and-showing mania continued at the Dubai Airport (voted the world’s best duty free!), where we spent the night. Attractive as some aspects of this materialist paradise were, and as ready as I’d be to spend another day there if I had nothing to do but spend money, by the time our flight to Ghana boarded in the wee hours Wednesday morning, we were quite ready to leave.

You Are Welcome

‘You are welcome’ is a greeting we have often heard so far in our time in Ghana, whether from someone we’re actually meeting, or from a passerby on the street. The more relaxed pace and fewer restrictions placed on us than in Egypt, along with the warmth of many people here, has made us feel very welcome indeed.

The Accra airport was a contrast to the shopping-mecca of the Dubai duty-free (named “world’s best airport retail”)-- in fact, there wasn’t any duty-free that we could see. John, the director of the non-profit organization Youth Creating Change (YCC) and friend of our Hartford friend Marla Ludwig, met us at the airport. (Marla has visited Ghana twice, and is currently working on a project to raise funds and help organize the construction of a kindergarten in the village of Dalive.)

On the road from Accra to Sogakope, our first stop was the ATM. With the rate of 9,200 Ghanaian cedis to the dollar, we remain confused in trying to figure out how much money we actually have. On the rest of our trip to Sogakope we were struck by the store names. While Ghana has significant Muslim and Traditionalist religious minorities, it seemed like almost all of the stores we drove past had Christian names: “Not in my power,” "Prince of Peace Hair Salon," and "He is Love Cold Store," among many others.

The airport in Accra is located almost exactly on the equator, and the pace of life here moves accordingly with the heat and humidity. The land around Sogakope is flat and green, with palm trees and massive red-dirt ant hills taller than a person. The Volta river (beyond the dam, which created Lake Volta, the world’s largest artificial lake) provides hydro-electric power, but not consistently: when we arrived in Sogakope the electricity was off, making our hotel room a sauna.

The first night in Sogakope we met with members of YCC at their office, the bottom floor of an apartment building with space for computer classes and a library/reading area. Several of the YCC members were in their 20s, while others were high school students. People spoke about being involved because they wanted to work towards a better future. They devote a lot of time, all as volunteers, to YCC: one woman Olivia keeps the library open daily from 9-5. We also shared some about us: when she learned that my dad has about 100 cows, one high school student asked if he was a millionaire-- here, owning cattle is a sign of great wealth.

The second day we had breakfast at the hotel: banku (a fermented mash made from cassava) with a tilapia fish and hot pepper-tomato soup. You’re supposed to use your right hand to make a ball of the banku, and dip it into the soup. It’s common to drink beer for breakfast, and although we stuck with tea we could see the appeal of beer with this type of food. After breakfast, John took us to meet with the District Chief Executive at the government building, where local representatives were preparing to elect the district legislative leader. We also met with Moses, the director of Social Welfare, before starting the drive to the village of Dalive. We went with a surveyor to start the process for the construction of the kindergarten. When we arrived at the village, we first met the residents in a classroom, and set out to help with measurements for the building site. After we measured the distance to the river (in addition to growing crops like corn and cassava, most of the men in the village are fishermen), we ate fresh coconuts that one man climbed up a palm tree and cut off with a machete. We met again with the residents, and discussed clearing part of the building site before the surveyor returns to finish his work. Finally, we presented a bag of school supplies that Marla had sent. Currently one teacher has 55 kids in a room containing only a chalkboard, so the supplies will be a welcome addition.

We returned to Sogakope and headed to a local bar, an open air cement structure between a gas station and the government building, to negotiate the price with the surveyor. At the table across from us were the district legislators, who we learned had just elected the chief from Dalive village as the legistative leader for the district: a good sign for helping the kindergarten project to move forward!

On our third day we saw the YCC Library Club in action: about 25 kids ages 8-16 meet twice a week and read one book per week, which they present to the other kids. The Library Club is led by a high school member of YCC. That afternoon we traveled to the village of Adrakpo, where John met with youth interested in starting a Library Club there. Our taxi driver was constantly swerving to avoid the pot holes which covered the road: while the road the other direction from Sogakope is very good, the repairs are happening in stages and this one hasn’t been repaired yet. John told us that most of the books YCC currently has are American or British, and that they want to acquire more African books. The impact of this difference in cultural context was clear when we observed a role-playing session by the Adrakpo youth, and they read from The Babysitters’ Club series—Rachel gave them some of the context, which otherwise seemed entirely foreign to them, and absurd to us. Before we left Adrakpo, we were served a meal of banku and fish, and also got to meet a member of the village who had just returned that day from a one-year term as commander of African Union peacekeeping forces in Sudan.

We talked with John about what his goals for YCC are. They really want to get internet for the office, but some reason getting online in this region of Ghana is ridiculously expensive: John said it would cost $3 to 6,000 up front, plus $100 per month, which is what the Sogakope luxury hotel paid for their absurdly slow connection (picture dial-up circa 1996) that we waited and waited for while checking email. This amount is completely beyond the realm of possibility of YCC, a reality that is unbelievably frustrating and feels almost criminal: internet access would multiply the resources available to them and the students they work with by incomprehensible amounts; it's something that we in the US take completely for granted; and yet, by these flukes of history and patterns of economics, it's out of their reach.

Our last day in Sogakope was Sunday. We joined YCC member Olivia in attending the Assumption Catholic Church. Sunday services are 3 hours, and Olivia says she also goes to services every other day, which are 1 or 2 hours. The music was amazing-- resonant harmonies and vibrant, constant drumming. We tried two more traditional dishes: red-red (fried plantains and black-eyed peas in a tomato sauce) at a small one-table restaurant across the street from our hotel, and fu-fu, a mash similar to banku. In between we took a boat trip (two people rowing the three of us on a small, heavy wooden boat) on the Volta to the point where the river meets the sea. We were guests of Moses the director of Social Welfare for our evening meal of fu-fu. When we arrived at his house, the electricity was off so we dined by candlelight.

When we left Sogakope for Kumasi on Monday morning, we were incredibly thankful for the chance to meet John and all the members of YCC, and for the warm welcome we had received! We hope that we were able to contribute something to YCC, since we received so much.

Hotel Cairo/Chez Henrik: The Anti-blog

[delay in posting because of blog site/connection problems]

This is a different sort of blog entry: instead of describing fascinating
new horizons and unusual sights, it describes a return to a place
(Henrik’s apartment) that has felt like a slice of home away from home,
about finding local fun with new friends, bureaucratic snarls and a time
for repose and taking a vacation from our vacation. Instead of in an
internet café, this blog entry is being typed in our friend Henrik’s
apartment. Because his phone line hasn’t been working for approximately
the past month, this entry is being posted at one of two neighborhood
branches of the western, English-oriented café Cilantro (where we first
went to meet a friend because it was one of the few available options open
during the day during Ramadan, and now go on almost a daily basis to spend
time online). In addition to their fondness for Mariah Carey (the album
Butterfly was on continuous loop for the over 3 hours we spent there one
day), the song “Hotel California” is also appears frequently on their
playlist, and expresses something about how feel unable to check out of
Cairo.

The first period of our time back in Cairo was expected: we arrived from
our trip to the Siwa Oasis the evening of October 23, hoping to be able to
get our Ghana visa (which we’d mistakenly assumed we could get at the
airport) in time to fly to Dubai on October 28, and then on to Ghana on
November 1. To keep the visa debacle story as concise as possible, here’s
the summary of 4 trips to the Ghana embassy (during which our taxi stopped
to ask directions from the same corner policeman, who would greet us with
a smile, 3 of those times):
1) Oct 24, the first day of Eid, the feast after Ramadan. The embassy is
closed until Oct 29.
2) Oct 29: we go and unsuccessfully argue to allow us to apply for the
visa, which they say is only possible on Tuesdays and Thursday.
3) Oct 31: we apply for the visa and unsuccessfully ask them to give it to
us that day. 4) Nov 2: we pick up our visas.
Between getting the visa, making the necessary flight changes, and buying
our second round of plane tickets for the trip, we are ready to stop
dealing with travel logistics for awhile. Needless to say, we will be
making advance inquiries for all remaining visas.

In those first days back in Cairo, we spent a lot of time with Henrik and
his Danish friends, at more upscale places mostly in the wealthier
neighborhood of Zamalek. We went to the open air restaurant Sequoia,
situated on the Nile across the river from the World Trade Center, which
also has a two-tower design (although they’re currently constructing a
third building in the middle—I don’t know if 9-11 had any influence on
changing the appearance). From there we went to a concert at the El Sawy
Cultural Center, a very cool use of space with a stage area constructed
underneath a Nile bridge, accommodating several hundred people. The band
was Wust El Balad, apparently a popular Egyptian rock/pop band, which
someone told us differs from most other pop groups in that their lyrics
are not religious. During the show, someone told us the songs were about
“Che Guevara, the war in Iraq, and marijuana”; the music was a little
reminiscent of Manu Chao, with an eclectic world-beat sound. To cap off
the evening, we followed the group to the dance club Latex, located
underneath the Hilton, which proved to be a typically snobbish and sterile
club environment playing poorly remixed hip-hop. Another evening we went
out with the same group to the bar at La Bodega, a trendy place that we
returned to another night for dinner with an American friend where the
food was good and there was even a decent bottle of Egyptian wine (the
maker imports the grapes from France). We felt more comfortable in Cairo,
more familiar with the city. With Ramadan being over, most people seemed
happier as well, and although it’s still warm during the day, the weather
is much cooler now than when we first arrived (although the air pollution,
at levels up to 100 times what’s considered safe by the World Health
Organization, unfortunately hasn’t changed).

Aside from one tour of Coptic Cairo that a friend of Henrik’s invited us
on, we haven’t really done any sight-seeing since we’ve been back in
Cairo. Instead, we’ve been doing some of the things we haven’t done for
several months: listening to music, cooking, watching movies, and reading
Henrik’s books. In addition to a Danish cartoon movie called Terkel in
Trouble, we’ve watched 3 Danish movies: Adam’s Apples, a dark comedy about
a neo-nazi’s time after release from prison with a priest who refuses see
anything disproving the goodness of God; and the first two movies in Lars
von Trier’s American trilogy set during the Depression: Dogville, where a
woman on the run seeks shelter in a small town in the Rockies, and
Manderlay, where the same woman attempts to set right life on an Alabama
plantation where slavery still exists. In these two movies, the picture of
America is very bleak indeed.

Currently, Henrik is attending a conference at Alexandria, so we’re all
alone in his apartment. We joked that when he gets back, he should change
the locks so that we can’t stay any longer, and he replied that maybe we
would change them by the time he returns. Henrik, showing his sense of
humor, also suggested that we just stay with him for the rest of the year,
and write fictional blog entries based on information we find online.
While respectfully declining his offer, in addition to planning a future
trip to Denmark, we have made Henrik and others promise to visit us in New
York so that we can repay some of the wonderful hospitality. It’s been
great to stay here, but when November 7 comes, we’ll be ready to not just
check out but to finally leave and get back in the pace of traveling.

Friday, November 03, 2006

Some Thoughts on Women

There's one subject I've been avoiding because I've been so confused about it, which is the subject of gender in the Muslim world, and how I feel, as a woman, being here. We've written about it a little in specific situations, like in the two Turkish villages we went to, where we could be more detached and factual—women sat here, men sat here, etc. The part that has been more difficult for me is the things I've been feeling. One of them is much angrier and less open-minded than maybe I wanted to believe about myself; when I saw, in Istanbul, on a 95 degree day, a man in short sleeves with a few buttons unbuttoned, while his wife was shrouded completely in a heavy black robe, I felt true hatred for him. Same in the airport in Cairo: this man was in short sleeves, again, and his wife was not only in the black robe, but also had a solid black veil over her head covering her face—it didn’t have even the eye holes that a burka has. She was holding a baby. She looked like a ghost, like she should have been wearing a sign that said "there is not a person here." I almost threw up.

Those are pretty extreme examples, and I think my disdain for them is justified from a human rights perspective. But I also find myself feeling it about the focus on "chastity" and "modesty" of women as a whole. From a western feminist perspective those ideas are used entirely oppressively. However, it's also a problem projecting my theoretical ideas onto everything and everyone—I feel both constantly judged (the basic precept in Egypt particularly but the region more generally being that western women are all prostitutes) and constantly judging, looking at most men here as if they are misogynistic oppressive assholes and most women as if they are weak tools of the oppressors. This clearly is not a way I want to be approaching people, and goes against my own values by stripping people of individuality and agency. This has been weighing on me a lot. One of our first nights in Egypt I dreamed that I was with a woman covered in black and I was supposed to ask her questions about women in Islam—but when I asked, I could never hear anything she said. (My worry that I'm not open to other people's beliefs). And then the next scene in the dream was me at a burka rental store, and I was being put in a burka, and the dream panned out on me screaming. (My fear and hatred of the practice). I haven't fully come to terms with any of this, but it has certainly been an important aspect of my experience here.

One positive outcome of our unsought extra week in Cairo, though, has been that I’ve had the opportunity to read an excellent anthropology of poor women in this city, called Between Marriage and the Market: Intimate Politics and Survival in Cairo, by Homa Hoodfar. The most important lesson from this book, for me, is that to assume it’s possible to know what’s really going on in a society based on certain external appearances is ridiculously arrogant and simple-minded. As an abstract idea, this is something I knew already; what’s been really valuable has been to have felt myself making such judgements, almost against my own will, and then to have Hoodfar’s deeply interesting research shake me back into reality.

The guiding questions in Hoodfar’s book are, what choices do poor Cairene women make in planning for and within marriage, and why do they make them? The key idea is that the women are, indeed, actively making choices, and that these choices are rational in the context of their lives. One example of this is why women who did not grow up wearing the veil took it on. (This was a big trend, called “reveiling”, in the 1980s and 90s, when Hoodfar was doing her research; now, almost all lower and middle class women here are veiled.) Hoodfar found that women in her study often veiled in order to defend their right to work—whereas an unveiled woman going out in the morning or evening alone, or speaking as an equal to men, would garner accusations of “seduction”, a veiled woman would not, and therefore women would veil in order not to bring dishonor to their husbands while still being able to continue doing what they wanted to do (i.e., go to work). Relatedly, Hoodfar found that women would support the traditional gender hierarchy, validated and widely venerated by Islam, in large part because they were able to manipulate their lives within that hierarchy, and feared loss of control if the hierarchy were to change. For instance, the Quran states that a man is the breadwinner for the family, and with this position of responsibility he has various privileges as the family’s head. Hoodfar found that the women at least nominally upheld the “man as leader” idea, in part because they would use it to demand that the man meet his responsibilities of providing for the family’s basic needs; with high rates of illiteracy and extremely low wages in their own jobs, the women could not risk food for their family on demanding to be seen as equals within the marriage. Further, the women in the neighborhood most admired by other women were those who were able to keep up their husbands’ egos and reputations as household heads, while actually controlling most or all aspects of running the household themselves. In effect these women were often undermining the hierarchy, but in word, and when it suited their purposes, they were supporting it. A third example was that of family planning. Hoodfar found that, overall, choices about contraception were made by the women, and that many of them tried to have many children early in the marriage because they considered it a way to “secure” the marriage (which is borne out statistically, in terms of divorce rates) as well as to protect them in old age, as religiously sons are supposed to care for elderly parents, and there is no state social security. Thus, three things that could be seen only as forces of subjugation acting on women are, at the very least, complexified; the women are active, not passive, players.

The other crucial point from Hoodfar’s book is that we must recognize that words and concepts mean very different things in different contexts, and it is not only futile but actively harmful to push one’s own understanding onto other people and situations. (Our friend Henrik is doing his dissertation on a similar topic in regard to dialogue between Christians and Muslims in Egypt, using the theoretical framework of “language games”—meaning, basically, all the unstated social meanings and understandings that words carry, and without which they cannot be truly understood. That is, language never has a pure and simple meaning—it always has a context.) For example, when the women in Hoodfar’s study talk about a “love” or “western” marriage, they mean a marriage based primarily on physical attraction, which they rightly recognize as a tenuous basis for a long-term relationship—but of course when we talk about a marriage of love, physical attraction is only one of many elements we have in mind. The concept of honor as a person’s most fundamental defining characteristic—as the thing most to be protected in one’s life—has little currency in mainstream western cultures. However, it is of the utmost importance to both women and men in Hoodfar’s neighborhood. Similarly, when the women in Hoodfar’s study considered the western possibilities of being single or childless by choice, they found them absolutely incomprehensible, representing utter loneliness and failure as a woman. And their understanding of western society is that men have very little respect for women—we might say the same of theirs. Neither perception can be called true; but, based on the different ways we understand “respect”, both perceptions contain some truth.

To be able to talk about what should happen, you have to really understand what is happening. I am certainly not at that point yet on this topic, and never will be. But after reading, I can no longer look at the women here and see just victims of or participators in oppression. I cannot look at veils, or even fully covering robes, and say they are just tools of oppression. What I can say is that to be pushed into veiling, supporting the gender hierarchy, or having more children than desired, by economic and social circumstances, is wrong. The women act and make choices within the parameters of their lives, but the narrowness of these parameters indicates real failure on the part of the state. I don’t know what the answers are, but I think that a better education system, a decent minimum wage, and a social security program are places to start. It seems that maybe the state doesn’t know what’s really going on in the neighborhoods either. If it weren’t so serious, it could be laughable—the state wants to curtail population growth, which is among the fastest in the world, yet it doesn’t do anything to move toward a social security program, which could prevent poor women from feeling compelled to have many children! Both poor women and poor men (who face many challenges as well, although they aren’t what I’ve been focusing on) deserve a horizon of rational choices, of real possibilities, far greater than what they currently face. Ignorant criticism of their current choices, though, will do nothing to help foster that reality—on the contrary, it will only push it farther away.